Tools are routinely used to cut various types of materials, such as metal and wood. After extensive use, the cutting surfaces of such tools can become dull over time, and a tool with a dull cutting surface will generally not cut with the same precision or speed as a sharpened tool.
Hence, tool sharpeners are often employed to sharpen the cutting surfaces of tools, thereby extending the useful lives of such tools. It has often been found to be more economical to resharpen a dull tool as opposed to discarding the tool altogether and procuring a new replacement.
Depending on the configuration of the tool, a tool sharpening process can be relatively complex and not easily implemented manually. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,735,732, issued to Bernard and assigned to the assignee of the present application, generally discloses a drill bit sharpener that utilizes a chuck to hold a drill bit for sharpening. The chuck and bit are inserted into an alignment port to set various geometries of the bit with respect to the chuck, such as depth and angular orientation (timing angle).
Once aligned, the chuck and bit are inserted into a sharpening port wherein the bit is presented to a rotating grinding wheel to sharpen the cutting surfaces of the bit. As the chuck is rotated by the user, camming surfaces on the chuck control the depth and angle of the bit during the sharpening process. As desired, the chuck and bit can further be inserted into a split-point port in order to provide a split-point on the bit by removing material between the respective cutting surfaces on the drill bit tip.
While operable, there remains a continual need for improvements in the manner of sharpening various types of tools, such as drill bits, and it is to such improvements that the claimed invention is generally directed.